Friday ceremony honors Benghazi victims

Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday plan to honor three men with ties to San Diego County who died in the attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, last September.

Former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty of Encinitas and Tyrone Woods of Imperial Beach, who were working as private security contractors, and State Department information specialist Sean Smith will be saluted during a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

The event is also expected to highlight the service of Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador who also was slain in the Benghazi assault.

Close relatives of the San Diego County men, including Smith’s mother, Patricia Smith of San Diego, are in Washington to attend the American Foreign Service Association’s memorial plaque ceremony at the State Department on Friday.

Smith traveled there on Thursday and plans to stay in the capital to sit in on a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Benghazi next Wednesday.

“My son was killed and I want to hear all the details about why it happened and whatever other information comes out,” Smith said after arriving in the nation’s capital.

Efforts to reach relatives of Woods and Doherty on Thursday were not successful.

The association’s ceremony honors foreign service workers killed in the line of duty. Smith said she was told her son, who was raised in San Diego, is receiving the Thomas Jefferson Star for Foreign Service. That award, which consists of a foreign service star medal and a certificate signed by President Barack Obama and Kerry, will be presented during a private meeting with his family.

It was not immediately clear if Doherty and Woods are receiving the same award or another recognition.

All three will have their names added to a plaque in the State Department lobby containing the names of employees who died in the line of duty.

The hearing Smith will attend is led by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, who characterizes witnesses expected to testify as State Department “whistleblowers.” He’s said those witnesses will “expose” further bungling at Benghazi.

Issa and his Republican committee staff refuse to identify the witnesses. House rules allow them to wait until 72 hours before the hearing to disclose witness names to committee Democrats.

Issa conducted a similar hearing in October that disclosed requests for beefed up security at the Benghazi compound went unheeded.

As the finger-pointing in Washington over Benghazi continues to roil, the FBI published photographs Wednesday afternoon of three men it wants to question Sept. 11, 2012, attack.

In a move similar to the call for the public’s help in the Boston Marathon bombing, the bureau is asking for assistance in identifying and locating the three men photographed at the compound when the attack occurred. The FBI stopped short of calling the men suspects, saying only that they may have information critical to its investigation.

“We need your help to solve this crime,” the bureau said in a statement accompanying the grainy set of images apparently recorded by compound security cameras.

Back on Capitol Hill, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., continues to demand retraction of a GOP-prepared report issued last week that Issa contends shows former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally signed a cable denying the request for additional security at Benghazi.

The cable carried a stamped Clinton signature, but State Department veterans said it’s virtually certain that Clinton never saw it.

“It was incredibly reckless, or worse, if these public accusations were made knowing that the documents do not support them,” Cummings said.

Issa also contends the White House has tried to muzzle his hearing witnesses, an accusation Obama denied during a news conference this week. Kerry also disputed any such effort and promised cooperation with lawmakers pressing the Benghazi probe.